Performance analysis of a modified Savonius hydrokinetic turbine blade for rural application

Abstract

For rural areas situated in the deep topography of Sarawak, the distance from energy grids and plants are situated too far from the power appliances. Hence, sustainable alternative method of generating energy for the people should be put into consideration. For rural areas rich with riverine streams, the employment of hydrokinetic turbines (HKT) would be a good alternative to meet their daily requirements. The HKTs are fundamentally understood as a turbine that harnesses the kinetic motion of freestreams without the need of head. In the preceding years, the development of HKT turbines has undergone several breakthroughs in terms of efficiency and design. However, at low water depths cluttered with debris, it makes the implementation of certain HKT orientations limited. In such cases, the Savonius style SKTs would be one of the promising deployments in riverine systems. In this paper, a newly developed Savonius blade profile by Roy & Saha was simulated in a fluid medium of water through the CFD software StarCCM+. The two-dimensional unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes equations was solved using the shear stress transport k-co turbulence model at a Reynolds number of 0.71-1.88×105 and water speed ranging from 0.3-0.8 m/s. The maximum power coefficient generated by the modified blade was 0.43 at TSR=1.0 and Re=1.88×105.